Green Party Candidate Dr. Jill Stein Says, “Bernie and I Need to Talk”

It’s not easy being Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein—who faces a battle generously described as “uphill”—but the environmentalists’ pick for President is optimistic that her colleagues to the left and right are inadvertently clearing a path for her campaign.

“Well, the major parties are melting down before our very eyes,” Dr. Stein writes in her AMA (Ask Me Anything).

“Donald Trump’s campaign has been described as a hostile takeover of the Republican Party,” she continues, “and it is in disarray. Bernie Sanders represents the people but is being sabotaged by the Democratic Party. So the base of both parties is abandoning ship …”

She suggests the presidential race’s tumultuous tone offers a compelling context for her party’s viability.

“The Green Party is the only national-scale party that refuses to accept corporate money,” she writes. “So you are looking at the future of people-powered politics right now, in the form of the Green Party.”

And the solutions that this “people-powered politics” would offer?

“Not only canceling student debt and making public higher education free,” she lists, “but also creating healthcare as a human right, a welcoming path to citizenship, an end to the prison-industrial complex and police violence, and endless wars for oil.”

If the phrase “people-powered politics” faintly recalls the brusque, crowd-stirring speeches of Senator Sanders, the correlation between the Green Party candidate’s agenda and that of her progressive counterpart hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“Here’s the deal,” she starts. “Bernie and I need to talk … But it has to start with his being interested … I am committed to indepedent politics because I know that the goal for the Democratic Party at the end of the day is to sabotage the likes of Bernie Sanders and myself.”